Editor 's note : The staff at CNN.com has been intrigued by the journalism of VICE , an independent media company and website based in Brooklyn , New York . VBS.TV is Vice 's broadband television network . The reports , which are produced solely by VICE , reflect a transparent approach to journalism , where viewers are taken along on every step of the reporting process . We believe this unique reporting approach is worthy of sharing with our CNN.com readers .

Brooklyn , New York -LRB- VBS.TV -RRB- -- At the foot of Mount Fuji , in the Chubu region of Japan , a lush and expansive forest named Aokigahara sits dauntingly . Local residents are told from an early age to avoid it altogether , as its sheer volume leaves little question that a curious youngster will be unable to find his or her way out of thickets that have become synonymous with a dark mythology .

Though the area has served as a respite for the peaceful elderly suicides of yore , today it has devolved into the country 's ultimate destination of despondent citizens suffering under the pressures of Japan 's notoriously driven and achievement-based culture . Aokigahara is now the site of 50 to 100 suicides each year .

Earlier this year , VBS contacted Azusa Hayono , a geologist who for more than 30 years has patrolled Aokigahara studying the land , serving as an environmental conservationist and stumbling upon the not infrequent dead body . A sweet , conscientious and demure man , it is strange to consider the amount of solitary carnage he has encountered . He 's come to act as a sort of counselor to the many people he finds contemplating death along Aokigahara 's pathways .

See the rest of Aokigahara Suicide Forest at VBS.TV

As he led us into Aokigahara , so creepily scored with the echo of birds and crackling brush , the idea that Azusa was sane at all seemed almost impossible . That we 'd find a dead body , to us at least , was entirely possible -- so much so that when we did in fact stumble on what Azusa judged as a suicide from at least a year before , and were left staring at the decomposed corpse , we were shocked it had n't happened sooner .

Over the course of our time with Azusa , this eerie side of Japanese culture came into clearer focus . He explained to us the numerous ways its citizenry is called on to excel -- and how the subsequent feelings of inadequacy mislead and often overwhelm . It paints a sweeping and telling portrait that a sole stretch of forest , born centuries before in the wake of a volcanic eruption , could come to represent to so many the only way of escaping the ways and pressures and apparent failures of an entire nation .

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The Aokigahara Forest is Japan 's most popular suicide destination

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Lush , expansive land is the final resting place for 50-100 people a year

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Geologist patrols the land , discovering bodies and counseling at-risk people